Physico-chemical properties and associated active microbes of tea garden waste of Golaghat district of Assam, India

Abstract

Tea Gardens generally produce two kinds of waste materials such as Tea Factory waste (TFW) and Pruning Litter (PL). Minimum 2 % of TFW is produced as by - product during processing of tea contributing a huge quantity as waste material.Similarly during pruning operations considerable amount of biomass are produced. Both the bio-waste materials can be managed by biological process to produce value added organic supplement to enrich the soil of tea plantation. During the present study different physico-chemical properties, viz. pH, P2O2 , K2O and nitrogen’s of TFW were analyzed. In TFW the value of Total soluble solids ranged (27.2-31.1%) and Crude fiber ranged (25.83-31.12%) and Caffenine amount ranged (23.14- 27.94%) and Total ash ranged (3.15-6.54%) The aflavin ranged (0.45-0.76%) and the arubignins ranged (18.45-21.32%). In TFW and PL some beneficial and active microbial populations are found which can be used in tea plants after making value added compost to increase their natural productivity. In this study focus was given to explore the beneficial and active microorganisms found in TFW and PL and found some beneficial microbes such as Actinomycetes, Azotobacter, Azospirillum and Phosphate solubilizing bacteria respectively